Animals must not matter

Everyone says they want a peaceful world. Few act to bring it about and of those who do act, few of them link peace with food choices. Even amongst the most educated people, very few believe animal rights will see the end of violence in our world.
To vegans, however, the importance of granting animals their right-to-a-life must seem obvious. Our treatment of them seems to so obviously symbolise our present downfall that to restore any semblance of dignity, animals must come to matter to humans The only way to bring about lasting peace in our world is to admit the association between many of our life-comforts and our own human violence, especially the violence associated with animal food. For meat eaters, the brutal killing of animals means animals must not matter and this is not an easy precept to hold down, yet it’s essential if human exploitation of animals is to be allowed to continue.
Unlike any other predator (whose food supplies are limited) there is abundant choice for humans. However, we pretend we have to eat meat and animal products to make us strong. We desperately want to believe this, despite knowing instinctively that animal products are slowly poisoning us. Further, we live by the double standard of appearing nice as people but who are nevertheless too cowardly to kill the animals we eat; we let someone else do the dirty work for us.
As humans, even if this were our only inconsistency, it would be enough to fundamentally weaken us - how can a world damaged by human behaviour ever be saved by humans that refuse to change that behaviour? If we stopped, if we became stronger willed, if we took up vegan principles … but it seems that making the connection between comfort and violence is too painful and becoming vegan makes for too great a personal sacrifice. We are too hooked on our foods and lifestyle and therefore instead of our being a great asset to the planet, we remain its greatest curse. Our unwillingness to sacrifice a few comforts ties us to the abattoir and dooms us to inevitable self-destruction. All the time animals remain property, all the time we keep the slaughter houses open, all the time we turn a blind eye, there can’t be any peace and we have to accept that the fate of humans, not animals, must not matter.